So I was wondering a few things about how spiro affects muscle mass. I've been on it (as well as e) for almost 4 months now, and my dosage was just recently upped so I know that I have to give it time to take its course. I have about 16 years of competitive swimming behind me (something that I stopped a few years ago but I've always tried to stay it shape with cardio) and I really would like to lose all that 'excess bulk' that I've accumulated because of it. I know that how everyone reacts to hrt is different, but is there like some sort of generalization where I'm really going to start seeing some difference in my upper body strength? Or even better, any advice to help accelerate its disappearance?

Thanks

I'm unsure about the specifics (and would myself like to know more), but whilst I'm not sure about your "natural" muscle, I think that with time, at least your extra "swimming muscle mass" should be gone.

That's all I can tell you, sorry. I hope someone gives us more info. I myself have an above average muscle mass (well, for an inactive individual, that is), and hate it a lot.

PS: Anyone replying "YMMV" shall be cursed.

Muscle bulk is hard to shift safely.  If a muscle is in use, it will tend to maintain its mass, so how quickly your upper body muscle will reduce will be depend on your daily activities.

HRT obviously will reduce the amount of muscle over time as it becomes harder to keep the same amount of muscle with little T in the system, but that will take time.
Theoretically speaking a careful catabolic diet could work, but may involve unacceptable risks - I would not attempt what I'm going to suggest below without the help of a nutritionist/dietitian:
1.  Diet sufficiently to have a caloric deficit - you will still need sufficient essential nutrients to maintain internal health.
2.  Endurance/cardio exercise (bike/running etc) that involves no upper body exercise.

The idea here is to burn through _all_ of your fat stores, and then once that occurs, your body will look to the next available source of energy - muscle.  The muscles in use will be sacrificed last so the biking/running thing will tend to maintain the legs and cause loss of the upper body muscle.

As this sort of thing is potentially dangerous, please make sure you do this under professional supervision.

i know for me my muscle mass is dropping all the time.

It will most likely drop slowly over time as you go on HRT. It is how it went for me.

Muscles were one of the very first physical changes I saw. I noticed my strength drop steeply after a month, and lost 2-3 inches in my band size. But honestly I think I'm an exception, and that all turned into fat so.. lol it's not like I am happy with the changes in all areas. My arms and thighs are flubbery and I have extra fat around my ribs

But I still have a bit of muscle.. not much but I could stand to lose some after 6.5 months on a respectable dose of HRT.

Thanks for the speedy replies!
So it seems like time is really is going to be the major factor here, which I kinda figured was going to be the case. I just want results now haha

Quote from: luna nyan on March 19, 2012, 06:25:11 PM
1.  Diet sufficiently to have a caloric deficit - you will still need sufficient essential nutrients to maintain internal health.
2.  Endurance/cardio exercise (bike/running etc) that involves no upper body exercise.

I've been really diligent about keeping a caloric deficit since starting hrt while still making sure that I'm getting everything that I need daily. On top of that I've also been good about running several time a week, so really I just need to give things more time. My big fear from all this though is definitely developing a marathoner's body (I feel awful for saying this but, I'd like to have enough fat so that 'e' has something to move around)

Quote from: A on March 19, 2012, 05:32:33 PM
PS: Anyone replying "YMMV" shall be cursed.

I absolutely loved this 

Quote from: Alexis on March 20, 2012, 07:13:39 AM
My big fear from all this though is definitely developing a marathoner's body (I feel awful for saying this but, I'd like to have enough fat so that 'e' has something to move around)

Gaining fat is easy!  Chocolate ice cream!  Cookies and cream ice cream!
In other words, I'd be concentrating on losing the muscle mass first then gaining wobbly bits. =)

My worst feature before HRT was my upper arms/shoulders. After a year of HRT and making a point of NOT using those muscles any more than needed, they look much slimmer now. I avoid chopping wood or anything that would bulk up that part of me. I work with my hands a lot still and my forearms are larger than I would like but I'm not going to lose any sleep over than one. I agree with the start riding a bike person. It will help burn off upper body mass and will help give you a nice butt/legs and still get in cardio.

A caloric deficit is probably not a good idea - not right now, anyway. HRT is like a second puberty; your body needs plenty of nutrients (INCLUDING calories). And if you slack off on the exercise for a bit, your muscles are probably not going to be the ones to benefit from the nutrients.

Quote from: Stephe on March 20, 2012, 09:43:20 AM
My worst feature before HRT was my upper arms/shoulders. After a year of HRT and making a point of NOT using those muscles any more than needed, they look much slimmer now. I avoid chopping wood or anything that would bulk up that part of me. I work with my hands a lot still and my forearms are larger than I would like but I'm not going to lose any sleep over than one. I agree with the start riding a bike person. It will help burn off upper body mass and will help give you a nice butt/legs and still get in cardio.

i used to be seriously scared of using muscles to the point of thinking i would end up looking like this.



turns out, it's just my obsessive compulsive disorder, thank god 

That woman is totally hot though.

I guess it depends on taste.

I'm not on spiro - but I'm on Androcur (for one year now). I'm in a study kinda thing at the hospital here and part of that is measuring my bone density every 6 months.
On those scans the doc also pointed out muscle and fat and it was so obvious how much muscle mass I'd lost compared to the last scan 6 months ago. Kinda cool to see it like that. There was more fatty tissue instead though even though I'd actually lost like 12 pounds and am quite slender.

I'm thinking I might be a bit bissexual.

Life is funny.

So consensus seems to be eat healthy, exercise, and let the little magic pills do their work? Kinda what I expected to hear but it never hurts to ask, so thank you all for answering. Anyone know of something that I could do about my impatience? 

As a serious question though, would biking be preferable to running? I know over the summer I'm going to miss the lap swimming that I've done in the past, I really did last year, but it really gave me evil evil shoulders

Quote from: Alexis on March 21, 2012, 04:09:28 PM
I know over the summer I'm going to miss the lap swimming that I've done in the past, I really did last year, but it really gave me evil evil shoulders

  I don't think taking a swim every now and then will hurt, just not routinely.

Biking better than running? Probably... By 1 %? In running you, uh, swing your arms. So more upper body exercise..? No, seriously, I think they're pretty much the same. xD

By the way, if you wanna swim but are afraid of the effects on your shoulders, you can try swimming another way. I'm sure there are swimming techniques that use more the legs and less the arms.

Quote from: A on March 21, 2012, 08:48:10 PM
Biking better than running? Probably... By 1 %? In running you, uh, swing your arms. So more upper body exercise..? No, seriously, I think they're pretty much the same. xD

By the way, if you wanna swim but are afraid of the effects on your shoulders, you can try swimming another way. I'm sure there are swimming techniques that use more the legs and less the arms.

Biking is no impact to the legs/knees.  That is a HUGE win over running for some people.  Also an aerodynamic position on the bike is a very strenuous arm and tummy exercise for most people.

But of course I love biking so I'm a bit partial.

  I am just doing the stuff that I did before.  I got more muscle mass than before HRT.  The culprit?  Too much testosterone.  This is a hormonal imbalance and this would do the things not intended for that particular hormome.  This is how the endocrine system works.  Hormones are the body's messengers and these messengers tell the organs how to regulate blood sugar, reproductive organs, energy and other things.  Too much of one hormone would give the affected organs or receptors too much of one kind of information.  This too much info seems to shut most of these things  down.  This may even cause my adreanals to shut down my "female" hormones present in both sexes.  This is one of the reasons for the hormone level tests the doctor gives you. 
  The so called sex hormones are present in both males and females for reasons newly discovered.  We all need these to sexually mature properly, both physically and mentally.  The only differences are the amounts of the androgen and estrogen groups in their systems.  To much over the normal ranges for their sex of either group of hormones would cause unintended side effects. 
  I just found a group picture of my small unit on a Navy site with me in it.  I was suprised to see that I was thinner than I remembered.  I was 6'0" weighing in at 140 lbs.  Small shoulders, long arms made the size M shirt look ill fitting.  I could never increase the muscle mass, no matter how hard I tried.  I ate more than the normal amount of food that one of my sisters accused me of having a hollow leg!  I had a high libido that was triggered my the sight of live women or thinking of them, but I could never get off on the nude pictures that were plastered on the bulkheads in my shop and other working spaces on the ship.  Nor could I get off on the super-8mm f*** flicks that were smuggled 'winky, winky' aboard.  The main trigger was from nothing at all! 
  I noticed being on HRT this past summer that certain things were turning on inside my head that should've been turned on during puberty.  This caused a wonderment duting the summer but turned into outright anger this past fall of the years slipped by and the normal things done such as marriage and having children by others not done due partially to those missing feelings.  It was the proper balance of hormones from the HRT, although meant for females, that brought these things on. 
  Spiro will cause a decrease of muscle mass in most males taking it, including those taking it for prostate and testicular cancers.  My hormonal balance near the normal female levels enabled my frame muscles to expand for the first time in my life.  The gain is where I use them the most, the arms and thighs.  Lifting or pulling heavy items are much easier now.  That is actually welcomed here.  If you want to keep certain or all of those muscles you had, proper diet and the excercises needed to maintain them are needed.
  Joelene